Caught in Transition (14 page)

A new year and a lot of snow. We ended up getting so much snow in January that our stand by
“
snowplow guy
”
couldn
’
t make it up our driveway. The snow was so deep we had to bring in a front end loader to remove it. Between the freezing rain and snow it was just crazy! I know Sheelagh was happy she didn
’
t have to clear it out.

My plans for my work life had come to a stand still. I found that I could no longer do my stained glass work due to the swollen joints in my hands and elbows. I was on a waiting list to see a rheumatologist and then hopefully I would have a solution to whatever was causing me so much pain.

Breasts Again

As I had mentioned before, Sheelagh had been having problems with her right breast implant. It had somehow fallen out of the pocket it was supposed to be in and was shifting out of place heading towards her right armpit and down towards her ribcage. It was painful and awkward for her and she was feeling worried that the other one was doing the same thing. Pain was being caused every day because something had come apart that shouldn
’
t have come apart. It was continuing to tear due to the weight of the implant pressing down on the tear.
 

She had contacted the doctor who had done the procedure, and now the time had come when she would have to travel down there and see her. Poor Sheelagh, on a horrible snowy day she flew to an airport near New York city, rented a car and drove to the doctor’s office in freezing rain. The doctor basically spent less than ten minutes with her and said she
’
d fix it with a few stitches for free, but Sheelagh would have to pay for the hospital time and the anesthesiologist, as well as the travel and accommodation involved.

When Sheelagh finally made it home at 3:00 A.M. the next morning she was one exhausted, frustrated person. After a good sleep she was extremely unhappy with the doctor
’
s offer and after doing more research she believed she had a fairly rare complication called bottoming-out. This basically meant that the breast implant was breaking out of the pocket that was made for it during surgery. A common estimate for repairing this is usually a two to three hour operation. It was apparent to her that a few stitches and half an hour of surgery was not going to fix the problem.

 
A few days later she contacted the office because she needed answers to questions she still didn
’
t have answers to. She was told that the doctor had left for a conference and would be away for a few weeks. That’s when Sheelagh asked to have a time arranged when she could talk to the doctor privately and asked that she be contacted on her cell phone. When the doctor did return she called Sheelagh at her workplace, on her landline without warning. Sheelagh obviously wasn’t able to talk about such private matters at work within earshot of her coworkers.

The doctor gave Sheelagh the same song and dance about how she could book the operation through the office and how only one breast needed work. That was all she had to say and after that she hung up on Sheelagh. At this point Sheelagh knew she could not trust this doctor, not only due to the fact she wasn
’
t communicating well, but that she thought her quick fix was the only answer. Sheelagh felt she had reached a dead end.
 

 
After that experience we spent hours and days researching other doctors who could correct this complex problem. There were many, many doctors who do plastic surgery but very few who could do capsulorrhaphy well. We narrowed it down to four, but I suggested Dr. K (the doctor who did her FFS), and Sheelagh contacted their office and sent them photos of the problem. After that Dr. K contacted Sheelagh by phone and they had a great discussion. He said the implants were too small, too high and recognized that something had to be done to reinforce the pockets so they wouldn
’
t continue to tear. Dr. K said he wanted to wait until as much time as possible had passed from the time of the original surgery because there was some kind of capsule or something that thickens with time and he had to suture that in order to repair the damage.
 

They agreed to do the surgery in September so that everything could heal as well as possible. The capsule that forms around the implant needed time to become thick enough in order to hold the stitches that would be needed to support the new implants. The cost of this surgery would be seven thousand dollars American, and the surgery would last approximately four hours for the breast repair and augmentation. A stay of only three days would be required for recuperation.

CAMH

Back in 2012, Sheelagh had contacted CAMH to find out why she hadn
’
t received a response from them about the referral that had been sent to them in 2011. They said that a referral was received by them but they had been waiting for a completed questionnaire form to be filled in. This was odd since a multi-page report showing a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from early 2011 had been included with the referral, so Sheelagh assumed that the report had answered those questions thereby sending the questionnaire in would be redundant. Assuming this was just bureaucratic idiocy she completed the questionnaire anyway and sent it to them.
 

Several weeks later she was given an appointment date, one and a half years in the future. That date was July 2015! Sheelagh contacted CAMH early in 2014 after discovering that they now had a social worker on the gender identity team. She wrote to the social worker outlining all the facts and obtained an earlier date.

Therefore on March 23
^rd
, I found myself dropping Sheelagh off at the train station for her trip to Toronto for her intake interviews at the Gender Identity clinic at The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). The purpose of an intake interview was to determine whether treatment was needed for gender dysphoria, and whether it was suitable for the clinic to provide it.
 

She took all the material to support the completion of her Real Life Experience (RLE) period, which is required to be one year. This meant
 
living her life as a woman continuously for twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. RLE is a requirement for bottom surgery, according to the WPATH Standards of Care.
 
By now it was over three years.
 

A psychiatrist and a psychologist interviewed her. In Sheelagh
’
s interview with the psychiatrist she mentioned that there was a part in the diagnostic report in her file that would have more details about the questions she was being asked. The psychiatrist opened the file and only found a prescription which said,
“
Please see this patient for transgenderism.”

Her family doctor had either not sent the documentation, or it had been lost at CAMH. A multi-page formal application was required and had been completed to request the referral. The detailed diagnostic report that had been prepared by the psychologist that Sheelagh had worked with was also missing. Now Sheelagh realized why she sitting at this interview more than two years later than she expected it would have happened.

More than a month later she still had not heard back from the clinic so Sheelagh went to her local doctor to see if he
’
d received anything, which he had. He had received a written report from both the interviewers. Possibly he just assumed that Sheelagh would have been informed of the results as well, and therefore had not contacted her. The reports both confirmed the diagnosis of gender dysphoria and recommended that an interview to determine her readiness for GRS be scheduled as soon as possible. Her doctor wasn
’
t going to do anything with regards to this, so Sheelagh took it upon herself and badgered CAMH until she had her date for the final interviews. She got a date a few weeks later for May 23
^rd
.

At that time she was again interviewed by two other mental health professionals to determine whether she fully understood the procedure, its ramifications, and whether she had a post surgery support plan. When the interviews were over she left feeling positive that she would receive funding for GRS.

Key West

One of the many interesting things we did this year was go to Key West for a week
’
s holiday. I thought this would be a great place to visit since we
had always heard it was gay friendly and a haven for artists. We stayed at a B&B that advertised as LGBT friendly. It was on Duval Street far enough away from the craziness, but unfortunately too far away from most things of interest. Sheelagh was expecting to experience a place that was tolerant, open and accepting of people of diverse lifestyles and genders. The B&B advertised that they supported the concept of “one human family
”
. This is the motto of Key West which basically means the equality of all, and specifically condemns every illusion that separates people from being equal.
 

When we arrived at our B&B Sheelagh felt slighted by the innkeeper
–
Sheelagh was sitting directly in front of the innkeeper but she chose to ignore Sheelagh and spoke only to me. The innkeeper
’
s body language was not welcoming. It was an unfortunate way to begin our trip but it pretty much set the tone for most of the week. I asked Sheelagh what the highlights and lowlights of the trip to Key West were for her. She flippantly said her favourite thing was getting on the plane and leaving. I thought that was a little harsh so when I asked her again she amended it by saying, she loved us making out in our little cottage and it was all about connection and feeling at home with each other in a faraway place. I loved that because that was identical to my feelings with regards to her.
 

Sometimes I think it also could be feelings of
“
me and her against the world
”
because for the most part we don
’
t fit in. Even when we joined up for two different bar crawls we thought there would be a cross section of people and we would meet some new friends, but the crawls just made Sheelagh feel more alienated. She said Key West was not a gay and lesbian haven as advertised, but a place catering mostly to gay men. With all the bars and readily accessible alcohol, we were disappointed to find the place also catered a great deal to straight baby boomers versus gay women.
 

It wasn
’
t even a comfortable place to walk hand in hand because of the dirty or questioning looks we received from the tourists around us. The one exception we found was when one night we were returning home after one of the crawls and we were holding hands and a fellow stopped us and asked if he could take our picture
–
I asked,
“
Why?
”

He said, “Because you just look happy.
”
 

What we didn
’
t say was that we
’
d made love the day before, and it was good. We were still living in the afterglow. No matter how snooty the tourists were, we couldn
’
t stop our happiness from shining through.

This was something that made Sheelagh very happy because she loved walking down the street holding hands and she was thrilled I wasn
’
t feeling afraid or ashamed to do it. I believe everyone should be able to walk anywhere holding hands with the one they love, but society can be a scary, non-accepting place. I worry a lot about being harassed or hurt by people who hate gays. I know - I worry a lot! That night I think the drinks I had earlier helped to limit my inhibitions and I just needed to feel the closeness with Sheelagh, so I reached for her hand which she happily took in hers. It took a bit of courage for me, but it was fun and worth it.
 

During daylight hours people from the big tourist ships and people riding their Harley motorbikes were not there because the place was gay friendly. They were there because it was the southernmost part of the USA where they could go and encounter an entire street of bars that are open to the street. We came away from that trip thinking the entertainment was substandard, the drinks were substandard, and everything else was overpriced and underwhelming. It was the first vacation when we were actually counting down the days until we could leave and go back home.
 

After reaching home, Sheelagh was quick to write a review of her negative feelings about her treatment by the management at the B&B. The owner responded that everyone else seemed to have no problem. Sheelagh wrote back that she observed that the great majority of their clientele were straight or gay male couples. She also said that if the B&B owners didn
’
t accept all people then the owners should stop advertising their support for the
“
One Human Family
”
proclamation on their web site. Since then, they have removed their statement of support for the city
’
s motto.
 

Summer

On the 14
^th
 
of June my son, Michael, and his new fianc
é
e came by for a visit. They live in Alberta so it was a big deal for them to travel the two thousand plus miles to where we lived. This was the first time they had met Sheelagh (they had known about her transition, but had yet to meet the new and improved Sheelagh), they were both great, very accepting and loving. I thought Michael who had known Sheelagh as Steve for almost half his life might have a little reticence, but no, we all had a lovely afternoon and it was sad to see them leave.